Amazing New X-Ray Image of the Whirlpool Galaxy Shows it is Dotted with Black Holes

In our Milky Way Galaxy
there’s a single X-ray binary. X-ray binary is a structure containing a black
hole seizing and heating material from an orbiting partner star, identified as
Cygnus X-1. But about 30 million light-years away in the Whirlpool galaxy (also
recognized as M51) there are hundreds of X-ray points of light and a full 10
X-ray binaries. Approximately a million seconds of detecting time, with NASA’s
Chandra X-ray Observatory, has discovered these points. Roy Kilgard, from
Wesleyan University, at a talk organized at the American Astronomical Society
meeting in Boston, said “This is the deepest, high-resolution exposure of the
full disk of any spiral galaxy that’s ever been taken in the X-ray. It’s a
remarkably rich data set.”

In the image, there are 450
X-ray points of light, 10 of which are expected X-ray binaries. The Whilpool
galaxy is supposed to have so many X-ray binaries as it’s in the course of
colliding with a smaller adjoining galaxy.

This interface causes waves
of star creation, producing new stars at a rate seven times quicker than the
Milky Way and supernova deaths at a rate 10-100 times faster. The more-massive
stars basically race through their evolution in a few million years and then breakdown
to form neutron stars or black holes rapidly. Kilgard said “In this image,
there’s a very strong correlation between the fuzzy purple stuff, which is hot
gas in the X-ray, and the fuzzy red stuff, which is hydrogen gas in the
optical. Both of these are tracing the star formation very actively. You can
see it really enhanced in the northern arm that approaches the companion
galaxy.” Eight of the 10 X-ray binaries are sited near to star forming areas. Chandra
is providing astrophysicists with a detailed look at a class of things that has
only one example in the Milky Way.

Kilgard added “We’re catching
them at a short window in their evolutionary cycle. The massive star that
formed the black hole has died, and the massive star that is accreting material
onto the black hole has not yet died. The window at which these objects are
X-ray bright is really short. It’s maybe only tens of thousands of years.”